


Many Cuckoos in the Nest, and the Original Nestling Clipped in a Gilded Cage

by 5ofSpades



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: A Dashing TIE Fighter Pilot, A Tarkin, Bad Emperor Hux, Ben is a Bad Boy, Ben is a Good Boy, Benevolent Dictator of the New Galactic Empire, Bird Keeping, Brendol's mom has it goin' on, Centerfold Hux, Child Soldiers, Choking on Food, Clones, Community: tfa_kink, Crack, Darth Vader’s Only Grandson in a Shock Collar, Deaths, Disarmament, Domestic Bliss?, Emperor Hux, Emperor Hux’s Evil Kindergarten for Evil Force Sensitive Children, Extremely Dubious Consent, Flying Lube is Dangerous, Founding of a Nation, Good Emperor Hux, Grand Moff Phasma gets Married, Greater Teacher Ben Solo, Hand Feeding, Happily Ever After, Honeyed Milk, Hux Does Not Deserve His Happily Ever After, Hux wins, Illustrated, Inappropriate Electro Shock Therapy, Inappropriate Use of the Force, It’s a Tradition Going Back Generations, Jam, Jedi Master Luke is Disappointed, Jedi Master Rey is Disappointed, Leia Does Not Deserve This Shit, Lies and hypocrisy abound, M/M, Mini Huxes, Pet Owner Hux, Pudding, Pure evil, SUCH FLUFF, Stockholm is Not Just a City in Sweden, That’s Not How the Force Works, This is nowhere near as serious as the tags imply, Too many Kylos, Too many birds, Torture, Trashship Sailing like a Star Destroyer, Woobie Enforcer of the New Galactic Empire, Years of Sexual Frustration, amputations, suicides
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-06-02 19:29:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6579394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5ofSpades/pseuds/5ofSpades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story where, in a galaxy far, far away:</p><p>General Hux ascended to Emperor-hood, obtained a very useful pet, and made the trains run on time.<br/>Ben Solo learned to be a <strike>terrifying monster</strike> very good boy.<br/>Kylo Ren’s lives were not his own.<br/>Phasma bought Ben Solo a magazine featuring His Imperial Majesty as the centerfold.</p><p>And one woman’s greatest loss was another man’s greatest gain.</p><p>Or</p><p>Where Ben Solo was kidnapped by Snoke and cloned to make Kylo Rens. Emperor Hux found the original copy, and put it to great use.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Many Cuckoos

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RainofLittleFishes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainofLittleFishes/gifts).
  * Inspired by [A Matter of Efficiency](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5865835) by [RainofLittleFishes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainofLittleFishes/pseuds/RainofLittleFishes). 



> Prompt:  
> Kylo Ren is not Ben Solo.
> 
> The real Ben Solo was kidnapped by Snoke at a young age, and replaced with a clone into the house of Organa-Solo, coded to do his master's bidding.
> 
> Hux wonders how the master of the Knights of Ren keeps on coming back from what appeared to be deadly situations.
> 
> He doesn't. A new clone is sent out each time the old one dies due to his careless and aggressive nature.
> 
> When Snoke finally lay dead, the Knights of Ren disposed of (and what hard work that was, when Kylo Ren keeps on coming back from the dead), the Republic fractured, and the Resistance fleeing, Emperor Hux finds Ben Solo. Soft, socially withdrawn/inept, physically crippled, but so very force-sensitive Ben Solo. How nice it is to have a useful mind-reading pet, with the face of a man he hated, obedient and pliant at his feet.
> 
>    
>   
>  _(Ok shameless self-fill. To the first filler, I am so very very sorry. I like your characterization of Hux much better than anything I could come up with. And Ben was on point as an abuse victim._  
>     
> I looked at the other prompts, saw one about Clones/Twins I think, wrote this prompt, went back and looked at it, sat on it, and started to self-fill like a bad habit before I saw Anon’s first fill. I love Anon’s fill. And so many of our opinions on the movie coincide! :D Hello like-mind!
> 
>  _So er… my self-fill, which wouldn't shut up in my head, where I can’t write a continuous story because I don’t know the SW universe that well. Only watched all the movies and the dreaded holiday special.)_  
>     
> 1st fill by the lovely **RainofLittleFishes** at A Matter of Efficiency (http://archiveofourown.org/works/5865835)

**

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a beloved Princess and her little prince.

Her darling little prince, who looked up at the glittering stars above in the endless sky, and dreamed of seeing the galaxy.

**

A long, long time ago, on the edge of a galaxy far, far away, there was an exiled Commandant and his son.

His only son, who looked down at the rusted metal beneath scuffed second-hand army boots, and dreamed of saving the galaxy.

**

“Do not wander by yourself into the woods, Ben,” said Leia Organa as she stroked her son’s soft cheeks. “It could be dark and dangerous out there.”

Ben giggled and squirmed in his mother’s arms. But the older kids went and played in the woods (behind their parents’ backs. Ben selectively ignored that part), and they told him how fun it was, what grand adventures they’d had. Ben was four years old, he was not afraid of the dark.

**

What little excitement Brendol Hux II may have felt for the arrival of the Master of the Knights of Ren, the strong right arm of Supreme Leader Snoke, the immortal Kylo Ren, died without a whimper after not even half a week in the man’s presence. In its place a great sense of annoyance was born.

Said annoyance escalated into distain and ire, as Hux’s well-planned schedules were shifted to accommodate all the newly implemented and very necessary emergency budget meetings, now two months into their acquaintance.

Disdain and ire soon grew in magnitude, as Ren took credit for most of Hux’s accomplishments in the eyes of the Supreme Leader, and blamed all of his own failings on Hux’s troops.

Soon the very sight of Ren, swooping around the Finalizer (his ship, it was his ship damn it) like an oversized carrion bird, was sufficient to bring a near twitch to Hux’s carefully neutral face.

And this wild goose chase of a map to the so-called Jedi first temple. This mystical nonsense. How could all this aid the advancement of the First Order? Of the New Empire?

Religion should have been kept away from politics. But yet religion was ever intertwined with war. And the First Order still needed Supreme Leader Snoke.

**

Ben went with Poe to play in the woods. It was a bit dark in there, but also so exciting. Ben wanted to share his new adventures with his mom, but the older kids told him not to. So Ben kept quiet.

If only his dad came home. He could share anything with dad. He was dad’s brave little falcon, and dad never got mad like mom did.

Dad and Uncle Chewie sent gift packages and holos instead. The galaxy called to them.

Mom went away longer and longer for work. The galaxy needed her.

Ben was a big boy now. He could take care of himself.

**

Disdainful as he was, Hux still could not help but acknowledge Ren’s prowess in the field. A man honed into a sword far sharper than his lightsaber, a bird of prey set lose with a wave of his handler’s hand, a force all onto his own.

And in the deep of the night, Hux sometimes recalled Ren’s youthful face, with its peculiar spots, so very unlike his own faded freckles, so accidentally revealed to him, and felt the faint stirrings of something akin to lust. If only Ren was his to command.

Such stirrings were quickly cooled however with the next equipment damage and personnel injury report, courtesy of the discipline-less loose cannon, who disregarded his authority so flippantly.

If Hux could not command Ren, maybe he could find some way to break him instead. Someday, some more opportune circumstance and time.

**

When Ben was five years old, he went into the woods by himself.

Poe and the other kids looked for him.

Leia, called out by a crying Poe and his distraught father, looked for him.

**

Hux thought he would feel anger, anger as hot as the heat of a stolen sun. But instead he felt a deep sadness, a deep heartsick. 

His life’s work, his magnum opus, breaking apart under his very feet. 

His Stormtroopers, his officers, falling into the great gaping maws of the planet. 

The troopers trained by his father’s methods refined. His stern, admired father, his poor, beloved father. Oh how he had dreamed of the stability and glory of the Galactic Empire even upon his deathbed, body ravaged by the early years of harsh exile to the Outer Rim. 

The officers tried and true to their great ideals, their noble goal. Some of them surviving the first and second Death Stars, only to end here. His peers, his elders, his fellow countrymen.

**

But the woods were dark and deep. So very dark and deep indeed. How easy it was to lose such a small bird in such a great forest.

**

Hux thought he would feel rage, rage as blazing as Ren’s faulty saber. But inside he was calm, passive, ice instead of fire.

How could Snoke’s priorities, after all this, still be nothing but the safe retrieval of Kylo Ren?

Kylo Ren who lay in his own frozen blood dyeing red the snow, his dark robes like matted feathers around him. The Knight had one job. One job. And were those lightsaber burns? The reckless fool.

**

Ben came home by himself after two weeks. A little bit dazed, a little bit emancipated, but otherwise healthy and whole.

Leia held on to her son and cried and cried.

**

Medical thought Kylo Ren would not survive, as they sent the Knight patched and sedated on a shuttle with a pre-set course.

Hux partly hoped Kylo Ren would not survive out of spite, and partly hoped Ren would come back healthier so Hux could punch that scarred face himself. To think the man was wasting time settling a family feud instead of focusing on the bombs set into the oscillator, or at least calling back-up. How dared he. How. Dared. He.

To Hux’s quickly denied relief, Kylo Ren came back, good as new, save for a cooler demeanor, and the jagged scar on his face.

How disappointing then, that his quasi-religious training must have been complete. For the passionate Kylo Ren who pushed Hux against his own office desk was gone completely, as if he was a different man altogether.

**

Ben grew distant. Ben grew strange.

Leia put aside her work. Han Solo came back from his adventures. But neither could reach their boy.

It was as if the dark of the forest had clung to Ben, and seeped into his every pore.

Maybe Luke would know what to do. Yes, Luke would know what to do.

All little birds must one day leave the nest. Ben just had to leave his earlier than most.

**

Snoke’s obsession with Skywalker grew, as the scavenger girl who repainted Ren’s dotted face with fire and blood grew.

But the First Order did not grow.

They should have regrouped and struck at the New Republic while it was still shaken with loss.

They should have consolidated their fleets against the also weakened Resistance.

But instead they were scattered to chase after an elusive old man and his pesky ward.

Hux looked out at the star dotted galaxy outside of his viewport. Does the First Order still need Supreme Leader Snoke?

**

Luke looked at his students dead upon the temple steps, and did not know what to do.

Overhead, scavengers circled lazily in the sky.

**

Hux returned to the Outer Rim Territories on his leave. To pay respect to his late father, he had said.

And so the General paid respect to his father.

And of course the General could not say no to his doting mother, who held a string of dinner parties for her darling little boy, returned so briefly to her after all those years adrift. She even invited all her late husband’s old friends. And of course all who’d received an invitation made their attendance. For Lady Hux was the best of hostesses, who served the finest food, poured the sweetest wine, knew all the latest goings-on, her pinions bright and smile beautiful still in a sea of stiff uniforms (an exotic but vicious bird plucked up from the front lines by Commandant Hux all those years ago, to be put into the most exquisite aviary for his viewing pleasures alone).

When Hux bid good bye to all his mother’s guests, esteemed leaders and military commanders of the First Order, remnants of the fallen Empire, every man and woman knew what they should do.

When he stepped back onto the bridge of the Finalizer, Hux also knew what he should do.

**

RN-0000 slept fitfully. His hands hurt, his feet hurt. He cried but no one answered.

In his dreams, he saw a woman with kind brown eyes, her hair carefully braided upon her head.

But the dark swallowed her whole, and RN-0000 choked awake on his own snot and tears.

**

“And how, Lord Ren, did you manage to escape back with your tail between your legs, when all the loyal Stormtroopers sent with you are dead?” Hux could barely hold back the sneer about to overtake his face. All those manpower and resources wasted on a string of foolishness, and for what?

The mask of Kylo Ren stared back at the General’s face, impassive, expressionless, inhuman, “I have achieved our objective, unlike those sent out with me. Perhaps they would have survived had they been made of sterner stuff.”

When the creature called Kylo Ren swooped back onto his private shuttle for the next assignment from Supreme Leader Snoke, Hux personally saw him off.

The shuttle exploded when it initiated the sequence to enter lightspeed.

**

RN-0010 never did cry.

RN-0010 however did report the technician who was kind to RN-0000. She was quickly replaced.

RN-0010 still did not cry, when a distraught RN-0000, with tears streaming down his spotted face, snapped 0010’s neck with a scream.

**

With a shower of metal and fire, the First Order declared its separation from Snoke and his attack dogs, the Knights of Ren.

Hux became the youngest High General in all of First Order history. None preceded him. None came after him.

**

RN-0000 outgrew his scrubs quickly, as his voice cracked and changed.

RN-0012 through 0042 never came back.

Maybe the forest ate them all.

**

So began the two pronged war of the First Order. On one side was General Organa and her band of insurgents, and the other Snoke and his dark magic.

How ironic, that the two biggest thorns in Hux’s side, the leader of the Resistance and the leader of the Knights of Ren, all came from the legendary Darth Vader’s stock.

How Ren had survived the explosion, Hux could not puzzle out. But evil and pests alike were both difficult to exterminate for good.

**

RN-0000 plucked at his scabs.

RN-0046 was reportedly terminated by the treacherous First Order, in service to Supreme Leader Snoke and his great visions. But RN-0000 did not care about that. At least the other RN units had one another for company. All he had were outdated holos and data pads, and the occasional technicians and doctors.

He never struggled when the technicians strapped him down. Not after the first few months, years and years ago, when all his keepers had looked so tall and imposing.

RN-0000 was taller than them now. But he had long been tamed, his flight feathers cut, too afraid to step out of the conditioned cage even if the door was left wide open. There was also no strength in his height, his skinny frail trunk supporting a too long head, too large ears, too full lips, too big a nose.

An ugly thing, his keepers sneered at him, as they hooked him up to machines.

But RN-0000 rather enjoyed their company. They had so much more to tell him, inside their heads, when they hoisted him from his tiny cell to the labs.

**

“And how, First Lieutenant Mitaka, did you mistakenly think Kylo Ren was dead?” High General Hux spun to address the hapless First Lieutenant, his frustration hidden on his face, in his voice, but not from his posture.

Mitaka grasped his hat in his hands, a nervous tick, “But I saw his craft explode with my own eyes, Sir! Captain PH-2190 set the charges herself, Sir. Maybe he escaped this time using the same tricks as the first time we’d sabotaged his transport, Sir?”

**

RN-0057 was also reportedly terminated during faithful service.

RN-0000 cared not for that. They shut him in his cell and took away all his things again. A punishment for the disobedient subject after he broke a new orderly’s legs. She kept on touching him strangely. It was an honest stress response. Didn’t she know about all the others that 0000 had accidentally broke before? In the cell, RN-0000 could barely hear/feel anything at all, everything was so dim, so muffled. He rocked back and forth, mumbling to himself and the monitoring device that he’d be a good test subject, he promise. He was so bored.

And his only dreams were of the dark forest, interrupted at random by electric shocks from his heavy collar, sometimes a stinging pain that was barely enough to wake him (save him), other times sending him into a full-body seizure that also forcefully emptied his bladder and bowels (he was thankful for the shocks. Anything but the forest, the dreaded forest. And that voice in the forest, that slimy, slithery voice in the other RN units’ heads). 

He was disobedient, and the dark came for him. He would never be disobedient again (until the next time he slipped).

**

“And how, General Phasma, did Kylo Ren escape your capable hands?” Moff Hux pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, the other holding a tumbler of scotch. A bit too early in the cycles to be given to drink, but Kylo Ren, even from afar, inspired such headaches that they could only be held back by stronger headaches of an alcoholic nature (a vicious cycle).

“Moff,” Phasma was the very image of professionalism even without her helmet and a nasty new cut on her already scarred chin, “I have led the charge that cornered Ren onto our pre-planted mines myself. Our scanners read no life signs at the scene, Sir.”

**

More of the other RN units deployed and never came back. 

RN-0000 bit down on his gag as a needle slipped into his spine. The surgical lights around him were blinding. Dark spots danced before his eyes.

**

And how? Hux thought to himself. How did this monster survive? How did this monster survive when Hux himself had pulled the trigger on his sniper rifle, and saw the bloody hole bloom upon its un-helmeted forehead?

Even the Force could not bring back the dead, could it?

**

If the Force could bring back the dead, Snoke certainly did not use it to perform such magic upon himself.

How ironic that after all the First Order’s efforts, it was the scavenger girl who finally cut Snoke down with a beam of clean yellow light, the colour of the sunrays and sand grains in her hair (Snoke had foreseen something like this, long ago. And how desperately he had tried to stave off fate with a vain hand).

But the First Order was nothing if not opportunistic, and like vultures they descended upon their former master’s remnants, eager for their pickings.

**

Hux was young for a Grand Moff, but he was also far from his salad days.

Test subject RN-0000 must have been of close age to Hux, from what the Grand Moff had garnered of Kylo Ren’s history, and in turn, Ben Solo’s lineage and origins.

Yet it looked so young. And despite its height, so small, like a starved heron with its legs and neck dislocated and bent, waiting to die in its own filth.

**

There was no magic, only cold hard science. 

The clones that Hux’s father had once scuffed at, utilized full.

And Hux felt cheated, so cheated (and when had HE died? The one who raged and raved and fought and lived with such passion. The one whose blood would never wash out of his greatcoat; the one whose blood would never wash off of Hux’s own hands).

**

General Phasma oversaw the destruction of all growth tanks, the monsters in various stages of development shot and cremated.

Some tanks were empty. Even one such as Phasma shuddered to think how some of the beasts may have escaped.

The original however, the original was an item of curiosity. She was not sure if it was more of an asset or liability. Although whether it would continue its contributions as a unique research subject or be granted merciful termination would be for Hux to decide.

**

RN-0000 felt so many other RN units blink out of existence in such quick succession, that even the Force dampening cell and cuffs could not hold their silenced screams back.

**

“I see they have clipped you in the most literal sense, Ren,” Hux sneered at the huddled form on the medical bed.

The creature’s thumbs and big toes were gone. The stumps smooth and old.

An effectively way to handicap a prisoner, Hux thought, as the thing chained to the bed peeked at him through its tangled hair, half in trepidation and half in curiosity (RN-0000 swore he’d seen this stern face before, as brief glimpses through RN-0044’s eyes, across the bridge of a ship in anger, intimately close in a dimly lit hallway in passion, framed against a burning winter sky in despair. 0044, who did not want to die. 0044, who was shipped back to them as a corpse long gone cold).

**

Hux could not believe Snoke created Kylo Ren out of this wreck. 

Hux never doubted Snoke’s capability in ruining Ben Solo so absolutely.

The creature was pathetic and meek, physically crippled, and mentally even weaker, shrinking into its corner whenever it was startled. And it was so easily startled. Sound, light, too many people in the room, too many people outside of the room, getting a warm bath (But Grand Moff, wouldn’t it be simpler for everyone to just hose it down? Asked the research assistant), the one time Hux tried to feed it some of his own food (too flavourful for the patient’s palate developed on nutrient pastes, supplement pills, and fiber shavings, explained the medical staff) (it was mildly spicy. RN-0000’s full lips wibbled as it tried to hold back tears upon the first spoonful). 

Despite its familiar face, RN-0000 was nothing like Kylo Ren. How very disappointing.

**

It must have been a cruel joked played upon him by the universe at large, Hux thought. How smoothly he and his staff’s experience in dealing with Ren transferred to dealing with RN-0000.

Perhaps it was something to be put onto a resume. The keeper of powerful Force using manchilds.

RN-0000’s tantrums were born out of fear, not anger. Yet the magnitude of the damage showed why it was the original, and Ren the copy.

Thank god RN-0000’s outbursts were few and far in between, and it broke much fewer equipment in total, and actually had the sense to hold back against most personnel. Otherwise the repair bills alone may encourage Hux into ordering a lethal injection into the fussy creature’s skinny neck.

Even with all its powers, RN-0000 was nothing like Kylo Ren. What a relief.

**

Technicians soldered off RN-0000’s old shock collar, dressed the electrical burns and lesions, bandaged the angry raw skin, and fastened a new collar around his neck.

The new collar felt and looked like soft black leather instead of heavy clinical durasteel. Embedded in it was a symbol of the First Order, perfect in its symmetrical geometry, and an engraving stating ‘RN-0000, property of the New Galactic Empire’. A fine feat of engineering, with significant improvement on form and comfort, while sacrificing none of its function (the subject jerked like a broken puppet against its restraints, its eyes rolling to the back of its head, its mouth foaming with spittle, as the scientist laughed and told it about the importance of repeated stress tests).

There was a tracker added in the collar too, as commissioned by Grand Moff Hux, RN-0000 noticed from the technicians’ passing thoughts.

Now that the Grand Moff had put his own collar on him, maybe he would keep him. Maybe there wouldn’t be a lethal injection as the red haired man sometimes contemplated. Not breaking anything or anyone for a month really paid off.

(RN-0000 broken a lot of things and people during the last and final stress test session, but he really was sorry. Somehow the Grand Moff understood, and personally snuck him puddings when he was supposed to be left in isolation as punishment. The surviving staff who had taken a certain delight in the stress tests quickly disappeared.)

**

Hux was surprised to learn RN-0000 was somewhat educated. Although the areas in which it held some knowledge were patchy at best (it knew more about bioscience and medical equipment maintenance than it should, had some experience with meditation, preferred to throw things with his magic, but knew how to Force choke if commanded to it, could pick twenty some types of locks like a common criminal, and was functional in Shyriiwook of all things). At least it was mostly literate.

The tutors shook their heads, and said their charge would take years to finish basic mandatory education, its prime years of learning long past.

The therapists sighed, and reported that their charge would have limited physical fitness. Wielding a lightsaber would be an impossibility.

Hux was pleasantly surprised at how quickly RN-0000 caught on to games of Dejarik. And how mischievous its voice could be, when it whispered to Hux about what the tutors and therapists thought before they’d even given their thoughts voice (and some of these thoughts, they would have never given voice). RN-0000 could hear so many things, but had no one to share them with before Hux came along.

Despite the infrequent tantrums and the undercurrent of mischief that raised its head from time to time, RN-0000 obeyed directions (mostly), followed rules and regulations (when he could), and was completely respectful of Hux’s authority (and everyone else’s). It never really tried to actively read Hux’s mind either (or anyone else’s, but people broadcasted all the time) (For RN-0000, disobeying directions, not following rules, questioning authority, and reading minds were all bad, and bad things meant punishment and pain. Before the Grand Moff came along, sometimes not being bad brought punishment and pain too. But this new keeper was methodological and fair, and had eventually trained and weeded his staff to do the same).

So obedient and oh so malleable, RN-0000 was nothing like Kylo Ren. This whole exercise might actually be a profitable investment after all.

**

When Hux stepped off the Finalizer onto solid soil, instead of taking a well-deserved rest, he became very, very busy almost immediately.

The weekly games of Dejarik with RN-0000 became something of a routine and relaxation for the man.

And RN-0000, noted and disregarded by others as the Grand Moff’s fresh-faced little pet (one of the young Grand Moff’s two vices, the other being the bottle), turned out to be a very profitable investment indeed, as he (Hux no longer thought of the Force user as an ‘it’, but neither of them could pinpoint when this transition had occurred) described all sorts of wants and desires, doubts and fears, none of them his own, exclusively for Hux’s ears.

**

Ave Imperator.

And those who died on the path of ascension saluted no one. Just like the many who had died before them, and the many who would die after them, again and again throughout histories, across universes, the sacrifices of the many for the ambitions of the few.

**

Many admired the new Emperor of the New Galactic Empire. So young, so ambitious, so successful. A tamer of suns and herald of peace.

Many loathed the new Emperor of the New Galactic Empire. So young, so ambitious, so successful. A mass murderer and warmonger.

Yet most agreed to fear the new Emperor, a cold and ruthless creature with a core of ice, a soulless black hole that drained the warmth of distant suns, the only dash of color on his bleak monochromatic form that red, red hair.

**

The Resistance cursed Hux’s name, cursed Hux’s efficiency, and cursed Hux’s cruelty.

Have you not heard, that bloodless monster wiped out entire systems, destroyed vibrant cultures, tore families apart, and kept a broken cripple chained at his feet like a dog for mere amusement! And he would soon do this to all of the Republic too, the whole galaxy brought low to satisfy his sick desires.

**

RN-0000 woke up screaming, about metal birds spewing fire, tearing at one another, falling, falling. So much blood painting the evening sky red (now he missed his old Force dampening cell. Now he cried to be put back. But the Emperor specifically ordered him to get used to his new room, a few doors down from the Emperor’s own).

And the New Empire’s forces fell under ambush by the Resistance two days later. Both sides sustained heavy damage.

More such dreams came. And in reality’s waking daylight, sometimes the Resistance gained, sometimes the New Empire was victorious. But to RN-0000, they were all the same, terrible birds of prey, men dying by the scores, loved ones weeping, weeping rivers of tears.

Phasma commented, “Well, he thinks of Snoke as bad, most likely. But the Resistance, the New Empire, they are all nebulous concepts to him.”

Hux instructed tutors to teach RN-0000 the glorious history of the Empire. Of the First Order. Of what they stood for, protectors of order and stability in the galaxy. They showed him films, literature, colouring books.

Hux read the exploits of Darth Vader to 0000 himself, one or two hours on his rest days (he worked on these days still), other times before bed. He let RN-0000 accompany him on troop inspections, sit at his feet during parades, to see the machines of the New Empire’s military might with his own eyes.

Phasma left some glossy magazines by RN-0000’s cot. He flipped through one, curious of the gift. When he spread open the centerfold, Hux was there, in his full Emperor’s regalia, his face noble and full of purpose, his sun-kissed freckles digitally touched, his back ramrod straight, not a single red hair on his head out of place. Hux confiscated the magazines later.

RN-0000 soon learned to distinguish between friend and foe. His dreams got clearer and clearer (His cot was also relocated into the Emperor’s room. The older man’s scents and sounds helped 0000 sleep. And even when all those premonitions of death no longer phased him, in the Emperor’s room he remained).

**

The lake was calm and flat as a natural mirror, reflecting a light violet sky. The leaves were orange and red like fire, going out in a burst of colour at summer’s end.

Riding on a light breeze the leaves fluttered down. Some landed on tree roots, some rejoined the soil that was rich and brown, and some landed on the bodies of the Imperial guards and one maid, all of whom lay dead. Some more drifted through an opened lakeside cottage’s door, splintered and scorched with blaster fire. Inside the door, masked men advanced upon the Emperor. They clamoured for justice, they chased after revenge. The fires of a dead sun fueled the burning rage in their grieving hearts.

The collared plaything huddling on a cot at the end of the Emperor’s bed was completely ignored.

RN-0000 panicked as he stared at the advancing shadows blotting out the autumn sun, and felt their murderous intent so strong that it drowned out even their pain and sorrows. They wanted the Emperor gone. But if the Emperor was gone, who would feed RN-0000? Take him for walks? Play Dejarik with him? Read him novels while providing him a lap to lay his head on? Give him permission to dig into the ever interesting minds of all those people during the day? Pet his hair and call him a good boy before sleep at night? Discipline him when he was bad? The Emperor was the fairest and most engaging keeper 0000’d ever had! RN-0000 wanted the Emperor to be his keeper forever.

He threw an ornamental vase at the angry shadows (it was given to Hux by his mother, but the Lady did not mind the vase’s final use at all, at all), and Forced the shattered shards deep into exposed skin, un-armored joints, fine glass grinded into pixie dust glittering through clogged bloodstreams.

He collapsed onto the floor in fear, when he realized one of the sprayed shards had left a bleeding cut on the Emperor’s arm. He was not supposed to damage his keeper. He had made the Emperor, the highest authority for lightyears around, bleed. He would be punished most severely for sure.

But Emperor Hux pulled him up by the arm, ushered him into the refresher suites, sat him down at the edge on the bath, pulled the vase shards from RN-0000’s feet and legs (when had they gotten there?), and carefully bandaged RN-0000 before seeing to himself.

And then Hux did something no one had done to RN-0000 for a long time. He hugged him (the last person who hugged him was the technician with her sad smile. So she was dead. The dark ate her. But Hux’s bathroom was well lit, his hair red as the leaves and bright as fire, his life force pulsing strongly).

“Thank you, Ben,” said and thought Hux.

Hmm, no one had ever said that to him in full sincerity before either. Not as far as he could remember.

**

“Am I Ben?”

“If you want to be.”

“I thought I was Ren?”

“No.”

“Ok I am Ben then.”

**

Hux’s head of security was reprimanded and demoted.

Ben was not to be blamed for being caught unaware. He did his best, with how erratic his powers could be, controlled by a fractured mind. The Force was a fickle thing, and instead of relying on Force users, those blessed/cursed with it should be treated as an extra edge in a much grander arsenal, an arsenal built and controlled by ordinary men. 

Hux would make his young Empire into a well-oiled machine yet.

**

Emperor Hux was nervous when his lady mother asked to meet ‘that pet of yours’.

But Ben liked Lady Hux’s food, remained his almost childlike and mild self, and was on his best behaviour. He enthusiastically sampled all the cakes, took little kitten sips of his tea, dropped his spork six times from his clumsy grasp, and smiled at the lady who offered him honey to sweeten the blue milk.

And Lady Hux petted Ben’s hair, called him a dear child, and told him to be ‘a good boy for my darling Hux’.

“She smelled nice and felt a bit like you, the sense of her mind. So why should I be nervous?” Ben later asked the Emperor.

**

“New Republic sympathizers were foiled from a potentially deadly bombing plot in attempt to assassinate our beloved Emperor, Brendol Hux II, and destroy the Fourth General Transportation Factory along with its innocent employees early yesterday afternoon. Fortunately for those involved, most of the bombs were faulty. And our valiant Emperor, his loyal Stormtroopers, and some brave factory workers have quickly detained the terrorists themselves. More details on their heroic deeds to come in personal interviews later tonight. The terrorists have since been transferred to the proper authorities. They are to stand trial in three days. Here we remind the public to be vigilant and report any suspicious activities, for your own safety and the safety of your loved ones…” read the rolling holo on the morning commute.

Ben never saw the news, for the Emperor’s personal transport did not need a rolling news broadcaster. So he never saw how the news never even hinted at his own very very important contribution in containing the explosions to prevent the many workers, some officers, Emperor Hux, and himself (mostly Hux and himself, saving the rest was just a fortunate side effect) from being blown to bits by the definitely not faulty bombs or crushed by the collapsing building.

He looked up from his jam and butter sandwich (the Emperor’s mother made the jam herself. Blessed Lady and her delicious tea parties) at the Emperor sitting across from him. Hux had eaten his breakfast long before Ben even roused from sleep (not Ben’s fault that he woke so late. He fell asleep in Hux’s bed for the first time last night, after the man rinsed the soot and blood off both himself and Ben and hugged Ben again. Hux’s bed was so much more comfier than his little cot, which in turn was comfier than the beds at medical, and the beds at reeducation, which were somehow still better than his old beds at the dark place with all the other RN-####’s), and was now on the com, busy discussing with his chief of intelligence about the interrogation progress and any possible criminal associates who may have slipped through the net. And how was this plot not caught ahead of time? It was a routine factory inspection, with strict safety protocols to protect the visiting officials. How did the riff raff manage to even set the bombs?

When Hux ended the call with a justifiably nervous chief of intelligence and his closest staff, he looked up from his holo display, and saw Ben smiling at him (Ben hoped he would get to nap in his favorite warm sun spot on the office carpet today. He was extra good and useful yesterday, and Hux always made sure to reward good behaviour. So many bombs, such a big factory, all those people angry and afraid. Ben was so tired).

Something like a smile tugged at the corner of Hux’s mouth, as the Emperor reached over with one ungloved hand, and swiped away the extra bit of jam that had somehow gotten onto Ben’s right cheek, right next to his little moles.

**

“They were angry,” said Ben.

“People who try to kill me often tend to be angry. Doubly so when they also just had their deepest secrets ripped out of their heads,” Hux paused in his reading to look down at Ben, who was currently curled lazily around his feet.

“Not them, the other workers. They were angry. A shimmering sort of anger, like a slowly boiling pot of stew, but not so delicious,” Ben bit his lower lip.

“The workers are angry? The New Empire lifted them out of poverty, rescued them from aimless unemployment, assigned them all jobs, made them productive citizens, and they are angry?” How dared the ungrateful masses.

“You said your Commandant father said people didn’t care about who ruled them as long as their needs are met, like dinner on the table and trains running on time and things. And I know he is right. My needs are met, and I am happy even when you are bossy all the time…”

“Careful Ben.”

“… But I don’t think those workers’ needs are met. They are angry and tired and want better food and pay and the freedom to complain and time with their families.”

“And you are mentioning this why? You never paid attention to the welfare of the masses.”

“Umm if this keeps on, I think some of them are going to blow up another two factories, for real this time. I dreamed it,” Ben stopped playing with the carpet fluff and tilted his head up at Hux. “And if that happens, you will have overtime and be sleep deprived and cranky and fall back to Drinking, and have less time for me. And Phasma will be angry, because she wouldn’t get her new TIE fighters on time at all.”

“Blast it,” the Emperor swore and stood up from his seat. “This may call for faster policy changes. The old coots at the council won’t like this one bit. Oh and Ben, give me a list of names, or just faces would do, of the individuals that you think will perform such terror acts. Some people have just signed themselves up for intense reeducation.”

**

Hux still got significant overtime, and was sleep deprive and cranky, and foisted Ben off on his mother for days.

Just to prove Ben wrong, he did not fall back to drinking.

**

To many people’s surprises, instead of tightening security at all priority work sites and publicly executing the terrorists and their friends and families, the Emperor instead made a big production of rewarding the loyal workers who bravely came to his aid, investigating possible corruption and graft in state owned agencies, allowing more differing opinions and some measures of freedom of speech, and raising the base level salary of state workers. Not by much, mind you, but credit was credit. And have you heard of the rumor of a two days weekend to be slowly implemented?

That the Emperor also increased security and surveillance covertly, had all the terrorists’ associates followed, their families laid off from stable state sponsored jobs (all with very valid reasons), and their children suspended from state funded schools (so very, very valid reasons), were deeds not very publicized at all. And when the impoverish families disappeared later, no one cared. Not their old friends who could not wait to distance themselves from Resistance scum, and definitely not their old neighbours too busy enjoying their long-weekend family trips.

**

The high council had fought Hux tooth and nail on increased wage and benefits, for it strengthened and enabled the very sheep that council families were so used to fleece to the bone. Hux quickly silenced them all by charging a few of the most daring with corruption and sedition (those who were persistently loud and vocal against standardized education for all citizens wisely lowered their volumes).

The high council had fought Hux the least on freedom of speech, for they all knew what little good such freedom had done for the general population of the Old Republic. Let the rabble talk, and feel better about themselves. Let them gather and talk to the air, and the Empire to choose what to listen to, which groups to grant its ears and which ones to pit against one another. Let them talk, for most of them would not act out of lethargy and apathy, could not act out of cowardice and fear, did not know how to act to fix the very ills they complained of. And for the few who did? Well they were either gainfully employed by the Empire, or quickly and quietly silenced. Sooner or later the rabble would accept that like all things in life, nothing was ever free.

And Hux recalled to Ben during one dinner, as he cut a choice slice off his bantha steak to be hand-fed to the pet at his feet (Ben ate breakfast wherever, depending on how the day started; ate lunch sitting at the table/office table, after needling Hux into not skipping his in favour of more work; and ate dinner more often than not at Hux’s feet. Being handfed was a bad habit developed during his first months with Hux, when he was still being bounced between the research center and the reeducation center, and all the interesting new foods he had access to came from Hux’s own hands), of something Brendol Hux I was told by his own grandfather, stories about the old councilmen of the loathsome Republic, from the old home world of the Hux family, that great green shining jewel from which they were so unjustly exiled. 

Of how the same few powerful families sat the council seats in rotation, advocating differences in small, inconsequential things, advancing the same agendas and same special interests all exactly the same way, voted in by the appearance of democracy. Of how the people complained of abuse, but accepted their own ‘choice’ of leaders, and did nothing.

So let the people talk. For talk was all they did, all they could do, when they were stripped of the tools to act. And once the Empire is strong and prosperous, its people truly proud, fewer and fewer would talk at all.

And I would gladly give my life, Ben, my life and soul and self entire, to see this Empire flourish, to bring the galaxy order and our people back to glory, to show the fools of the New New Republic and their sanctimonious false democracies the error of their ways. Hux took Ben’s mutilated hands in his own, and said.

(Ben learned a new trick. Selective memory alteration and erasure. It took a few tries, fried a few minds, but he got it at the end, and Hux was so, so proud of him. And Hux liked the trick so, so much, that he immediately commissioned the research council to duplicate it with science.)

**

The two factories from Ben’s dreams chugged merrily on, churning out war machines for their beloved Empire. And now that Ben knew to watch for more than the visible arms of the New New Republic, the intelligence agencies patched the holes found in their services, and the Empire readjusted its policies to better bring glory to all its citizens (not quite), no more factories blew up. Though from time to time inconsequential people disappeared, and consequential people choked on their food.

Even then, Ben was still caught by surprise when a public stabbing happened at the Capital’s city core shopping district, right under his nose. The incident occurred when Lady Hux was walking him at Tarkin Memorial Park, merely three short blocks away from the scene of the crime. It was too small an incident to be dreamed of by the supernatural, and too random to be predicted by the conventional. Eight people, including the assailant, were dead. Four from stab wounds, two from the small stampede and traffic accident that ensued, one from a heart attack, and the assailant from a sudden and violent suicide. Horrified bystanders described the man as a creature possessed, who held his knife up in shaking hands as he rammed his face repeatedly into the blade.

The corpse was later identified through dental records as one of the indicted factory bombers’ family member, his name and face publicized to show how vicious Republic sympathizers could be, going after unarmed, ordinary citizens (rich, government and First Order affiliated citizens), and dumped unceremoniously for recycling.

**

Ben helped Lady Hux in her kitchen more frequently, when the Emperor’s esteemed mother felt the fancy to honour her dinner guests with homemade desserts. Fruits were diced up by invisible knives, whisks whipped up cream and egg suspended in thin air, jars of jam uncapped and scooped themselves. And in the midst of it all was Ben, a conductor of this strange orchestra, who somehow still managed to get flour on his large nose. He must make the Force listen, he must have finer control.

Ben went on morning runs with Hux on a near daily basis now, instead of the half-hearted efforts he’d put in before. Round and round the private lake and its mini military obstacle course they went, in rain and snow and fairer weather. He must be faster, he must not trip over his own feet.

Ben bugged Phasma into teaching him more advanced hand-to-hand combat, attacks now instead of pure defense, specially modified to compensate for his lack of balance and grip.

Two of the dead that day were children. Ben still remembered RN-0003’s nightmarish vision, calling to him from across the cosmos, blurred with tears, of all those small children in drab robes, laying in pools of blood.

RN-0003, who fell upon his own lightsaber, after he so successfully completed the mission carved into his brain (Ben was so glad he himself wasn’t as successful at biting his own wrists back then. Staying alive turned out to be worth it in the end. And Ben needed to be faster, stronger, better, so that the people in his life now would stay alive with him).

**

Ben was not Ben Organa Solo, a soft and stupid Republic boy murdered slowly over the years.

Ben was not RN-0000, a creature wasting away under Snoke’s care.

Ben was certainly not Kylo Ren, who lived harder, burned brighter, and was larger than life in many of his iterations.

Ben was also not quite a thing of Hux’s making either.

Somehow Hux could not have been more glad that this was so. 

(The crooked and all too self-pleased smiles that Hux had so liked mirrored the smile of Han Solo. The gentle core nature so twisted by nurture (what nurture?) and tinted by the Dark came from Leia Organa. But Hux did not know that.)

**

Emperor Hux could not believe the riff raffs and criminals of the Resistance had regrouped so fast.

Leia Organa could not believe so many bowed so readily and willingly to the tyranny of the First Order.

Each looked at the other’s half of the galaxy in distain and righteous fury (the totalitarian regime that destroyed her world and took away her son; the anarchist rebels that ruined his world and as good as killed his father), and neither could believe how prosperous the other’s worlds had gotten, now that they weren’t constantly at all-out war, both turning inward for reforms instead of striking out.

Ben slept better. Hux’s bed was soft and comfortable, the man himself an adequate hug pillow, and there were less and less bad dreams, both of the past and future (no more dark lonely cells, no more families drowning under rivers of blood. Instead there were sunny days in the sitting room, cool evening strolls along the lake, hot sandwiches with home-cured meat, a spoonful of honey in his morning milk, summer night sky decked with a thousand stars, winter hearth’s roaring fire, red and raven fading to silvery white).

**

The assassins in black dropped into the throne room like giant birds of prey, each one hiding behind an inhuman mask, finally here to carry out their last and final directive.

They had Ben’s height, Ben’s broad shoulders. Ben did not have their muscle mass, their combat training or experience.

They all wielded the force with a deliberate viciousness that Ben did not possess (Ben’s viciousness was often accidental), eagles and vultures to the awkward and gangly waterfowl that was Ben.

They came so suddenly and without warning. The Imperial bodyguards had their blaster fire deflected right back at themselves. The Stormtroopers standing at attention crumpled inside their own armors. Even Moff Phasma, who got off two lucky shots in all the confusion, was thrown bodily against an onyx pillar. The officers and councilmen scattered, some by their own cowardice, others flung violently by the Force.

Hux ducked behind the throne, dragging Ben (who woke extra early that day, and insisted that it was a ‘Take Ben to work day’ despite his stomachache) with him, and drew his own blaster, little good this would do for him against so many Force users, each of them a shadow crept forth from the past.

But Ben, absent-minded, impulsive, stupid as ever Ben, made Hux loosen his grip on his skinny arm, and stepped out into the open.

“So it was a disturbance in the Force that gave me the stomachache all week instead of the seasonal flu I usually get this time of the year… Eh… Hello RN-0089 to RN-0112, with a few missing in the middle,” waved Ben at the flock of Kylo Rens. “Wow this is the first time I’ve met any of you with an over 0100 serial number face to face. How exciting!”

Ben was unsteady on his feet, for the lack of big toes took away his balance. Ben could not even grip a spoon or pen easily, never mind a weapon of any sort, for the opposable digit was ever so crucial to tool use. And Ben would never have the musculature he so envied in others, no matter how Hux and his mother fed him, and Phasma yelled at him in her private gym. Not with over half a lifetime of malnutrition behind him.

But when the RN units, no, the much hated Kylo Rens (Ben was here first, and Hux was Ben’s keeper. Ben’s!) that Hux occasionally dreamed of now and again in fear and anger, sometimes in regret and frustration, and very rarely, in admiration and lust, all raised their sabers and tightened their semi-circle around Ben and the throne behind him, Ben raised a hand to touch the collar around his neck (with the shock function removed, and hand-inscribed carefully with ‘Ben, ward of the estate of Brendol Hux II’ in the Emperor’s flowing cursive, instead of the clinical block letters of ‘RN-0000, property of the New Galactic Empire’) and stood his ground.

The supple leather was warm and familiar under his fingers, and Ben felt a flow of strength rushing into his core, light and dazzling, dark and empowering.

And the Force was with him fully, this child descended of the Force itself.

**

The pampered lapdog was a terrifying hellhound all along. How formidable and calculating the man who held its leash and sat the throne.

So circulated the new rumor amongst the upper echelons of the New Empire.

**

When Ben woke up in medical two weeks later, Hux was sitting by his side.

Hux dropped the report in his hand as Ben stirred, and stood to lean over the bed.

Ben’s wide and watery brown eyes looked into blue-green eyes that were a little red and watery themselves, eyes that traced over the moles on Ben’s face, Ben’s pale neck and torso, Ben’s new and only facial scar bisecting his too long nose, dragging all the way across his face to cut off the tip of his left ear.

Ben’s wide and watery brown eyes got even wider and darker as Hux leaned down to kiss him on his too soft mouth.

This was not Hux’s usual, normal touch (someone somewhere long ago taught Ben what was a normal touch. Someone somewhere long ago). There was a stirring of something other than possession and fondness in Hux. Usually this was the cue for Ben to embed whoever was touching him into the opposite wall. But Hux was not whoever, so Ben held still and smiled at him instead.

“I am the last RN unit now,” said Ben when Hux turned his attention to map the moles on Ben’s cheek, Ben’s jaw, Ben’s neck.

“No, there is no first or last of you. There is only one of you. There is only you, Ben.” Hux took Ben’s left hand and kissed each one of his boney fingers, and lingered on the smoothed scar tissue where a thumb should be. He would have kissed Ben’s right hand too, but there was only a cauterized stump where an arm once was.

**

Ben was introduced to many new sort of touches in the next few weeks. He was not averse to these touches, strange as they were. Hux was a good teacher in this as he was in many other things.

And Ben would be a good boy and learn to like this.

Hux was so slow and careful and very warm, and Ben was burning, burning up in the older man’s arms.

**

Hux was usually very direct in his more carnal recreations (when was the last time he had fraternized with anyone that were not his own hands and stray thoughts? Before his promotion to Moff, for sure), but he was slow and careful with Ben. The man was both afraid of breaking Ben to even more pieces, and very fond of his own continued existence (those who really stressed Ben out usually found themselves afflicted with a sudden increase in velocity only to come to an even more sudden stop).

Hux was surprised when Ben mewled and told him in breathless gasps how warm Hux felt. No one had ever described Hux as a warm creature before. Just like his Starkiller Base, he ever only knew how to leech vitality and warmth from others all his life.

**

“I can wiggle them!” Ben exclaimed, pointing at his new toes with his new hand, after flexing his new thumb and waving his new arm (the new hand came with a thumb too, how novel).

“Yes, that was rather the point,” Hux deadpanned.

Since we are getting you a new arm, we might as fix the rest of it too, Hux had said.

Ben couldn’t understand why Hux was swamped with so much guilt.

Also Ben was so going to get a lightsaber now somehow, one just like the heroic but tragic Lord Darth Vader’s!

(As soon as he learned how to use these thumbs.)

**

When Ben got somewhat proficient with his new prosthetics and changed balance, Hux took him riding. An old aristocratic pastime, he had said. Ben was excited to learn yet another new skill, and Hux really was a good and patient instructor, when the pupil was suitable.

The first two days were great. The gualamas were majestic but even-tempered beasts, and in their large brown eyes Ben saw kindred souls. The picnics Hux’s mother had packed for them were fresh and delicious. And the crushed grass was soft and fragrant beneath Ben, as Hux gently pushed him down under a fruit laden tree, his breath tasting faintly of black tea, his of honeyed milk, their riding jackets strewn across the glade.

But on the third day, Hux led Ben on a trail that winded into the forest at the edge of the summer palace.

Ben bit his lips and soldiered on, because that’s what Hux had asked him to do. But Ben was weak and feeble and unworthy, and he slid off his gualama friend to curl into a ball at the root of a tree. The forest brought the dark, and the dark would take Ben away.

Hux leapt off his own steed, and squatted down besides Ben, unmindful of the moss that stained his impeccable riding suit.

Look, said the Emperor to his vicious guard dog (too soft to be an attack dog), his broken pet bird (he’d rather have him broken and dependent than whole and flown away. But his arm, oh his arm. And his ear, his face. Any deeper and it would have… Hux was so, so sorry), look at how green the leaves above us and berry shrubs around us, how flickering the motes and pollens dancing in the beams of sunlight. And look, I am here with you.

Ben looked up at the patches of sunlight and shadow in Hux’s hair, just like how he looked up from his cell at this vivid red hair, this pallid and serious face all those years ago (the first face he saw, on the day he finally started living his own life instead of through snippets of impressions from his clones), now seeing premature gray sneaking up on the bright temples, more frown lines dignifying the beloved face (and some laugh lines too, Ben had put them there himself), slight sunburn on the bridge of that familiar nose, and realized there was light in the forest too.

Light and dark, dark and light, one to invite the curious into the unknown, the other to steady their way, always here in the forest, no matter how deep one goes. 

Both also always in Ben all along, from before he could ever remember.

**

The Light called out to Ben, and Ben let it fill him with warmth. The Dark enticed Ben, and Ben was no longer afraid. Ben looked at the clear winter sunlight glinting in Hux’s wind-ruffled hair, and bent down to hide his face in the shoulder of the Emperor’s dark greatcoat. Ben’s heart had never been so full before.

The scholars in Hux’s employ didn’t know what to make of Ben, a user of Forces Light and Dark. Was he a Sith? A Jedi? Hux scoffed at their puzzlement. Why agonize over such outdated mysticisms? Why confine yourself to one side of the same coin? Ben was Ben, and the Force a useful tool no matter what you called it.

**

Somewhere in a system far, far away, an elderly woman called out to Ben, her silver hair carefully braided upon her head, her eyes full of sorrow. Despite her age, she was beautiful, just like Hux’s mother was beautiful. But one was soft where the other was full of edges, intelligent and kind where the other was shrewd and self-serving. Yet the look in her eyes was identical to those of Lady Hux’s, when the Lady gazed upon her son.

But Ben did not care, for he did not know the woman. He did not know the woman like he knew Hux (he had lost her long ago, when he snapped RN-0010’s neck and felt not sorry at all. And he had lost more and more since, with each bloodied step so carelessly taken. He dared not call back to her and risk losing Hux too). So he ignored her, and rolled over to bury himself in the redhead’s arms. The man had promised to take him riding and shooting tomorrow, to stress-test his upgraded prosthetic arm, and Ben needed a full night of sleep for that.

**

Main Story End

**


	2. A Timeline of the New Galactic Empire (NE)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Now stop reading if you don’t want the story to suddenly depart in tone almost completely in the extras. AKA extra detail recaps, expanded slice of life, more bird references, and Ben’s exploits as an unlicensed child education specialist._

**A Timeline of the New Galactic Empire (NE):**

 

 **00 NE** , The New Galactic Empire was established. After much humble deliberations, Grand Moff Brendol Hux II allowed himself to be crowned Hux the First.

 **05 NE** , Emperor Hux married Pax Tarkin, a lieutenant twenty years his junior, of some relations to Grand Moff Tarkin of the Old Empire.

 **06 NE** , Twin heirs were born to the New Empire.

(Ben: But they don’t look like me at all! They are so… ginger.  
Hux: Why would they look like you?! I thought you liked gingers?!!  
Pax Tarkin: I think he took your words of ‘they will be your children as well’ too literally, your imperial majesty.)

 **06 NE** , Emperor Hux dissolved his marriage to Pax Tarkin on amicable terms. The latter returned to active service, and rose quickly through the ranks (she married Grand Moff Phasma later). 

**09 NE** , One of the heirs was discovered to be Force sensitive.  
(Are you saying that the Prince made you give him more candy? Said Emperor Hux to the cowering nanny.  
But Bren III did tell her to give him more candy. And I still think Brendol III is a horrible name. We should have named him Vader. Or Matt. Said Ben to the Emperor.)

 **10 NE** , Emperor Hux established the Institute of Learning and Research for Force Sensitive Children of the New Galactic Empire (LRFS).

(Some parents’ very valid concerns about the credentials and sanity of the institute’s one and only masked Force sensitive instructor were quickly shot down. Hux was sure there were no official credentials to speak of, and he was never quite sure about the sanity. But do you see any more proficient Force users loyal to the Empire laying around? Do you? Anyhow the children adored him.)

**21 NE** , The old Stormtrooper program was fully phased out. An upgraded program was phased in in its place. Stormtroopers were now also encouraged to participate in programs such as the Starfighter Corps and the Imperial Medical Corps. Officer level promotions amongst the troopers became more commonplace. Empire troopers’ defection rates saw a marked decrease. 

(Take that FN-2187!).

(If I got sent away and can’t come home on holidays to Papa and Ben, and have to wear a bucket all the time, I’d run away too. Said Pacifica Hux, the precious flower.)

(And why brainwash only your army, when you can now more effectively brainwash and bribe the entire populace with state directed media and state sponsored education and parades and holidays and employment and social security and timely public transportation? Said Emperor Hux to the unmasked Director of LRFS, in bed. The Director thought it was the worst pillow talk ever.)

 **23 NE** , General Leia Organa of the New New Republic passed away fretfully in her sleep.

(She never forgave herself, and she never forgot the loss and pain. She was so sure the confused and manipulated soul stuck under that genocidal dictator’s firm boot was her son. Her son. Not dead, not Kylo Ren, not a monster. Just Ben, her precious baby Ben (oh but what would you call the little bird by the Emperor’s ears, the hellhound at the Emperor’s feet, the invisible hand carelessly crushing fragile throats and gleefully digging through porous brains, if not a monster?).)

Emperor Hux sent his condolences (Jedi Master Luke Skywalker threw the card the emissary gave him into a furnace later).

 **25 NE** , Prince Brendol Hux III was kidnapped by the Resistance and subsequently rescued. This event, on top of steadily increasing tension between the New Galactic Empire and the New New Republic, finally sparked the First Imperial Expansion War.

 **25 - 27 NE** , First Imperial Expansion War. The New Galactic Empire brought peace and order to many originally contested worlds.

 **45 NE** , Emperor Hux passed away peacefully in his sleep (some say the man was a cold blooded snake with no principle nor conscience. Others say Emperor Hux was the savior of the galaxy and did nothing wrong). Pacifica Hux took the throne.

(She thought both parties were correct but yet full of bantha fodder. Her father was a cold blooded snake of great principle, the savior and bringer of peace and order to the galaxy, and he certainly also had done many things wrong. 

For example, Pacifica was so sure Uncle Ben knew exactly whose son he was for a long time, especially as his mind mended, and he became more and more his own man. Yet father had avoided this particular topic like the plague at all times. 

And more tellingly, he had not let Uncle Ben off the core Empire controlled worlds even once whilst a certain woman was still alive. Not when father went on tour of the more remote Outer Rim planets for political support, not when the Empire's fleet could have used Ben’s particular talents at the lost battle of Gan Moradir, which General Organa had participated in personally, and not even when the fist LRFS special class went on urban recon and survival training in contested Mid Rim territories. Every time quoting fears over Ben’s safety.

Uncle Ben, who was the most effective of father’s bodyguards, who could drop people dead from cities away and cause equipment malfunctions in fighters and starships across the vacuum of space, who was with his first special class every step of the way, and had looked so forlorn as he waved Pacifica’s brother off, nagging him to take care and take care of his classmates until the very last minute.

And on the Imperial Core Worlds Uncle Ben had stayed, until both the Inter-Planetary Ballistic Missiles (IPBM) atrocity and strategical necessity saw him deploy under the LRFS Director persona in the First Imperial Expansion War, well after the death of General Organa of the New New Republic. Even then, father always made sure to have Uncle with him on the Finalizer II within arm’s reach.

And in a world so advanced with so many options, Hux had also never allowed Uncle any biological children of his own, fearful that they would compete for his attention and affections. Perhaps the many pupils through the Institute were a small compensation? 

Her poor dear Uncle, so firmly caged by the insecurity and love of a greedy and jealous man. But then, if put into her father’s well-polished boots, the new Emperor would have done exactly the same.) 

(Emperor Hux the First’s favourite pet disappeared from public view that year. The Republic rumors whispered of how the Emperor had commanded his pet be put down and buried with him upon the tyrant’s death. The Empire’s citizens lamented that the poor thing must have died of heartbreak. Around the same time, the often elusive yet well respected Director of LRFS became a much more public figure, a silent guiding hand and protective guardian stooped over the new Emperor and her brother.)

 **49 NE** , The LRFS was appointed a new Director, Brendol Hux III.

(In the same year, the old LRFS Director shut himself into Emperor Hux the First’s Mausoleum, and never came out again.)

 **57 NE** , After many more small border battles and short skirmishes, the New Empire and the New New Republic finally signed the official ceasefire at the refurbished Jedi temple on Devaron, presided over by Jedi Master Rey and Brendol Benedict Hux III, Director of the LRFS, son of the late Emperor Hux the First, brother to Emperor Pacifica Benevolence Hux.

(Why dear Master Rey. Said the tall man with well-groomed red hair, a mild and amiable smile, and a smattering of charming freckles. I am not a Sith, far too handsome to be one, and hatred certainly brings me no strength. No, no, sadly not a Jedi either. No interest in all that celibacy oath and repressing one’s emotions and things. That doesn’t sound healthy at all. Love should be felt freely, and I am still very much smitten with my partner of many years. 

Ah despite my weak affinity with the Force, I am afraid you’ll find only a simple teacher and researcher here. My late father was never much into the religious and meditative aspects of the old religion, all magical nonsense to him. And as he was a man of logic, I am a man of science and academia. My lightsaber? Oh nowhere near the proficiency of the Jedi Masters. I did some recreational fencing in my youth. My father insisted, family tradition you see.

Say, this bantha cheese is really good, would you like some? No? You wish to know more about the previous Director? Oh no my poor, poor Teacher. My poor gentle mentor who was like another father to me. Who had devoted his life to guide and raise generations of Force sensitive children so that they may lead normal productive lives. His passing, so very sad. A terrible medical condition, his poor heart. He only ever got to hold my youngest nephew twice! Oh please do excuse me, I still cannot bear to talk about it at all. I get all too emotional.)

(And so great and genuine was the man’s grief, that some of the delegation gathered that day found tears welling up in their own eyes in sympathy, for who had not lost a beloved elder in their lives? And see, the scions of the Hux dynasty were not heartless monsters like their father. Why the brother Prince was but a softhearted albeit somewhat flippant scholar, whose flowing robes recalled the pious high priests of old, but with none of their holier than thou airs.)

(Rey bit her lips and frowned at the man who had so easily spewed mixed lies and truths through his pearly teeth, that even she had troubling telling where one ended and the other began. But the man did suffer as a youth due to his father’s wars and was a well-known pacifist, and the ceasefire offer was in good faith.)

**

And so ended the many lost years of conflict and strife in this galaxy far, far away. Until the Second Imperial Expansion War broke out, that is.

**

\- And thus concludes the tale of Ben Solo, the woobie evil enforcer of the New Galactic Empire, and the people who loved him.

**


	3. The Owl and The Crow

**Bonus – The Owl and The Crow:**

 

**

“I cannot believe you bawled your eyes out on inter-Galactic public broadcast. And you blew your nose like a trumpet too!” exclaimed Emperor Pacifica Benevolence Hux the First at her brother.

“Temper, temper, dear sister. The paparazzi already thought me weird ever since I was six years of age and Force-dropped Admiral Tibbens’ regulation trousers in public to reveal his non-regulation underwear, so I was just playing to expectations. Yours is the lovely and dignified face of the Empire that must be maintained.”

“Besides, what else would you have me do? Master Rey is old, but she is also much stronger with the Force. Any longer and she may just press me into admitting how our father had kept Lord Darth Vader’s only grandson in a collar for almost fifty years. A PR nightmare even if we manage to pass it off as some sort of over-enthusiastic sexual role-play. What if she then asks for the handover of Uncle Ben’s body on behalf of that dead Organa woman? To be buried with her son on New New Republic soil, one of her greatest dying wishes and all that!” LRFS Director Hux (also known to a select audience as Director Hux of MIIIST - Midi-chlorian Symbiotic Taskforce for Information, Investigation, and Interrogation, a minor employer of LRFS graduates) looked at his sister.

“Over my dead body. Uncle Ben belongs to the Hux dynasty! Even turned to dust and bones he stays here with the family.”

“Ceasefire treaty Bennie, ceasefire. No dead bodies of anyone for the time being, much less yours, sister. Of course we would not even consider such a ridiculous request. Dear Teacher is almost a spiritual symbol amongst LRFS students and alumni, his unparalleled power and fierce loyalty to the Empire great inspirations. To move him would be unthinkable. And the general populace would be up in arms, opening their beloved First Emperor’s tomb like that. I may have brought this up as a point of concern, but I do think at this time, having dodged the question of Uncle Ben’s various identities, Master Rey should have grace and tact enough to not ask of it publicly.”

“I know. I know, Bren. Ah this ceasefire. As much as it frustrates me, right now the Empire still needs to conserve her strength. We are not ready for an expansionist push for at least another half generation. But take heart, brother, that one day our children will again pick up the sabers we’ve put down, for order and true lasting peace.”

“Aye, for order and true lasting peace.”

**


	4. Slices of Life of a Clipped Bird and His Keeper

**Bonus Bonus – Slices of Life of a Clipped Bird and His Keeper:**

**

“That was not green tea ice-cream,” said Grand Moff Hux to the test subject, all too late.

RN-0000 was too busy rinsing his mouth of the spicy paste to even remember crying. RN-0000 felt so betrayed.

**

Handfeeding was all well and good, fostering closeness between handler and pet and all, but did Ben have to lick and suck his fingers clean every time?

Co-sleeping certainly had helped them both with their respective nightmares, but did Ben have to spoon and rub against him all the time? Even in the summer?

Did Ben even know what he was doing to his Emperor? Hux thought in frustrated resignation as he forced his morning wood to go down through iron will alone.

**

Hux beat against the Force shield, helpless, useless, not even his screams could carry through.

And limbs and limbs and limbs (and many other fleshy things) flew, but Hux’s tunneled vision could only see the dismembered arm with its familiar four-fingered hand bounce off the Force shield, which flickered but held strong still.

**

Hux lay gazing dazedly at his bed canopy. Ben definitely knew what he was doing now.

Curse the Force, Force users, and their magic-fueled refractory periods.

Ben summoned another tube of lotion from the refresher, breaking three mirrors and a drawer in the process.

**

“Which one of you incompetents removed all of Ben’s beddings?” the Emperor stared down at his terrified staff.

“Me?” Ben raised his hand.

“Why?” Hux did not like the look in Ben’s eyes. He had not looked like this since his reeducation center days.

“You are getting married to Miss Tarkin… You refurbished my old room…”

“Lieutenant Tarkin will be taking your old room.”

“Oh.”

“Yes ‘Oh’. For someone who can read minds, you are most obtuse. Now move your things back.”

**

“ ~~Could you two please keep it down?!! Other people are trying to sleep here!~~ I most humbly request that you exercise some restraint in your physical recreations, your imperial majesty,” read Lieutenant Tarkin’s memo.

**

“And no, you can’t just name them both Ben Jr. either,” Emperor Hux looked at his pet in exasperation.

But Hux named them both Ben anyway, sort of. Out of affection and guilt.

**

“… Our mama lives on a starship with Phasma. But where is Uncle Ben’s mama?” Asked the littlest Brendol.

Hux looked up from his paperwork in alarm. He tried so hard to never even think about that woman in association with Ben. But even the most hidden thoughts had the tendency to seep through nightmares.

Ben scratched his head and pointed at a giant portrait of the late Lady Hux, beloved mother of Emperor Hux the First.

**

When Ben put on the mask (a pale gray thing made of wood, light and delicate, covering only half of his face, nothing like the mask of Kylo Ren), his entire carriage changed. His posture was straighter, his voice firmer, his speech patterns suddenly more logical and mature. 

“Well, Ben would be a poor example for all those children. You wish them to be the all-seeing eyes and sharp hidden blades of the Empire, do you not? I have to be a Teacher now, responsible for the future generation and all,” explained the man standing tall before Hux.

He then rolled down his long sleeves to cover the already wrapped prosthetic arm, hid his hands inside a pair of soft leather gloves, his moles behind make-up, his alternate lightsaber clipped to its belt, and his long black hair tamed into a braid looped atop his head. And as he wrapped a scarf around his neck over the tell-tale collar, the Force, like a giant cat woken from slumber, wrapped around his entire person lazily, shielding, redirecting.

And no one, not even those who knew of the secret of their Emperor’s hellhound, would look upon this handsome stranger, and confuse him with a certain clingy and docile pet.

But Ben’s (?) smile was still the same, when he took Brendol III’s hand to escort the boy to his first class.

**

Hux waited all day nervously, distracted from his work.

But in the evening, when the newly appointed Force instructor of the newly minted LRFS took off his mask and let down his hair, the man whom Ben Organa Solo could have become disappeared. Instead there was just Ben, Hux’s Ben, bending down to curl at the Emperor’s feet again.

**

The Emperor’s once red hair grew white as the snow on Starkiller base, as the freckles on his face that he once took such care to conceal were overtaken by age spots and wrinkles. Ah but his eyes only became sharper still, deep and cold as bottomless glacial pools.

The Emperor’s children grew into adulthood tall, red-headed, and heavily freckled. One wore a serious round face and wild untamed hair, the other a smiling lean face and well-groomed hair. Should you ever catch them observing you (and you never would), you would notice their unblinking predatory stares, the owl and the crow.

The Emperor’s little pet bird also grew old and grey. His joints creaked when he bent down to lay at his master’s feet. Eventually he was forbidden from sitting on the floor, and was assigned various very well-padded chairs instead.

The younger maids and maintenance staff who wondered out-loud why the old pet was never replaced got quickly shushed by their supervisors.

The LRFS’s Mysteriously Masked Director aged both distinguished and dignified, his power and wisdom growing with age. A legend onto himself, a hero of the First Imperial Expansion War, the most revered Force user in the New Galactic Empire. The protégés who could be traced back to him were few in number, but influential in deeds.

The younger councilors and commanders who asked the Director why he never took on a more active role in politics only got a cryptic smile.

**

When Ben woke up one morning to find Brendol Hux II’s thoughts quiet and breathing still, he did not cry.

He did not cry in the four long years after. But he never laughed again either.

But Brendol Hux III swore he saw his Teacher smile again, when the man reached out with the Force to open Brendol’s father’s Mausoleum.

“We leave our Empire in your capable hands,” he looked back one last time at the grown sovereigns he had helped raise, and said.

Pacifica had screamed and cried at the cold hard stone. Was their love not enough? What did Ben mean when he said he does not deserve a clean, easy death?

Brendol simply put on the Director’s mask, and bowed to his Teacher, one last time.

**

A certain youngest nephew was enrolled in the LRFS special class that same year.

**


	5. Ren

**Bonus Bonus Bonus: Ren**

**

RN-0000 was so much more than just zeroes. But all numbering systems had to start from somewhere.

**

RN-0001 wasn’t the first one after 0000. However, the ones before it weren’t even worth numbering, clumps of cells and bio-matter that just didn’t form quite well.

RN-0001 came out of the tank, did not choke to death, was hale and healthy, but tested negative for Force sensitivity.

RN-0001 was recycled.

**

RN-0002 tried to run away. The tests got too painful to bear. 

It didn’t get very far.

**

RN-0010 obeyed.

For if it was good, maybe it would be the next to be sent outside. Outside!

RN-0010 couldn’t understand why 0000 was so angry. It was just following orders. It only wanted to go outside. It -

Technicians found RN-0010 with a snapped neck and empty eyes staring into the distance. They recycled its body.

**

RN-0003 hated RN-0000. The sometimes doting and sometimes distant mother. The fun but irresponsible father. The kind yet stern uncle. They were all not his. Their smiles and frowns were all for RN-0000, not for him, never him.

How could they smile and frown for him, when his hands were stained with red, red with those who had called him (not RN-0000, him) classmate and friend? RN-0003 didn’t want to be outside anymore. RN-0003 didn’t want to be anymore.

And RN-0003’s final/first act of rebellion wasn’t really his own either. As 0003 faded, in his head he could hear RN-0000’s distant wailing, like a dying great bird, like whistling wind through the reeds, in both horror and mourning.

**

RN-0018 to 0025 weren’t strong enough to handle the other Knights of Ren.

RN-0026 learned from their mistakes.

**

Snoke had promised RN-0044, as he had promised many others before him, that if he did well, Snoke would make him the real Kylo Ren.

For this goal RN-0044 had fought and clawed and bled, and gained so many things that RN-0000 didn’t have. Sure 0044 was too old to have a mother and father, but he had a shiny lightsaber, he had his Knights, he was given co-command of a Resurgent-class Star Destroyer!

Well technically these were all things assigned to him by Supreme Leader Snoke, difficult to earn and easily taken away. But RN-0044 found something of his very own. The General. The General who was of similar age to how old RN-0044 was supposed to be. The General with fire in his hair and conviction just as fierce. The General who argued and fought back unafraid. The General who touched him reciprocally with ungloved hands. The General who called out to him, loud and clear across the bridge of his ship, who murmured to him, soft and quiet near the shell of his ear: Kylo Ren. And in those moments, RN-0044 felt real, RN-0044 felt he was indeed Kylo Ren.

It was all going so well, until a Stormtrooper showed RN-0044 what true free-will was, 0000’s father showed RN-0044 a love that he so desperately wanted for his own, and a scavenger girl showed RN-0044 why a cheap copy could never be as powerful as an original.

And how RN-0044 wanted to beg The General to not send him back to Snoke. He was sorry for not capturing the droid. He was sorry for Starkiller Base. Please, please, he wanted to live! He had things to live for! He was real just like RN-0000! But his Master grabbed his throat and grabbed at the Force, and choked and choked.

The General heard nothing.

RN-0044 bled out red, just like a real boy.

**

RN-0000 was out cold when Han Solo died.

RN-0000 woke up feeling something was cut out from his life, but he could not remember what for the life of him, just like he could no longer remember a certain woman’s gentle face.

**

RN-0000 cried when RN-0044’s blood and tears both ran dry.

Just like RN-0003, 0044 was outside for too long, felt too strongly, carved out too much a life of his own.

RN-0000 wondered if given the chance, would he have done better or worse?

**

The remaining RN units hated Ben. Ben had a real childhood, Ben had all the power, and now unfairly, Ben was outside and had The Emperor and was as free as a RN unit could be.

If Ben was gone, maybe one of them could be Ben?

**

Emperor Hux had the mutilated remains of the dead RN units cremated and scattered to the wind.

**

Ben woke from another nightmare where his life was lived by other people. Hux petted his hair, rubbed his back, and had the night staff bring Ben a glass of warm blue milk.

Ben peered at Hux with his own eyes instead of through the eyes of another, and was so relieved.

**


	6. The Palm of His Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What do you do with a bird that would not sing?

**Bonus Bonus Bonus Bonus – The Palm of His Hand:**

**

The stress test on RN-0000’s new collar was both a success and a failure. Success because the collar was proven to do what it was designed to do. Failure because upon regaining consciousness for the fifth time, instead of begging and whimpering, the subject lashed out in a fit of aggression, cracked its force suppressing restraints, killed six laboratory staff along with two Stormtroopers, and damaged an estimated eighty thousand credits worth of structure and equipment. It would have done more, if not for the decisive actions of a Stormtrooper guard. The soldier had grabbed the controller out of a dead scientist’s hand and slammed on the activation button, shocking the subject back into unconsciousness once more.

The autopsy results reported liquefied internal organs.

RN-0000 is too dangerous, some of the scientists argued. We should put it down. 

Grand Moff Hux saw no reason why RN-0000 was subjected to the same test five times when two controlled tests would have sufficed, and had the head scientist demoted and fired immediately.

**

What do you do with a bird that would not sing?

Do you wait, passive and patient, for its carol?

Do you rend it apart in anger and punishment?

**

The pathetic figure crawled for the far corner of its cell, trying to hide its lanky self under a too small blanket. Its movement was slow and sluggish, still disoriented from a heavy sedative cocktail and weighed down by heavier force suppressant cuffs. Hux sighed and pushed a shallow dish of very mild rice pudding through the bars.

Hux took out a flask from his coat pocket as he watched RN-0000 tentatively poke its head out to look at the dish.

He had drained the flask completely by the time RN-0000 started to lick up the pudding from an awkward position on the floor, its already half-useless hands bound and linked to the thick manacles around thin ankles. It cringed and scooted back against the far wall, the dessert abandoned, when it noticed Hux looking at it.

Pressures from competing members of the high command, demands and questions from the thankless civilian industry sectors, military and political tensions from the Republic, guerilla tactics from the Resistance, and now on top of all that, two months of progress undone by idiots who overindulged in their sadism.

**

Hux recalled the skittish wild birds in his mother’s modest garden, and how she had trained one to take bread from the palm of her hand.

Just like the bird, with enough care and repetition, RN-0000 no longer shrank back during Hux’s visits. Instead it would press itself against the bars and look up expectantly, begging for both food and physical affection with large watery eyes.

**

(Too bad his mother’s bird was killed by the family cat.)

**

The Grand Moff reallocated some of the research budget for the acquisition of professional therapists, both mental and physical, for subject RN-0000.

A bird too ill and de-spirited to sing was a bird that’s of no use at all.

**

Hux used the shock collar sparingly, and instructed the new staff assigned to RN-0000 to do the same. He had also personally never used any setting higher than the lowest level, since the mild jolt was sufficient as both deterrent and punishment.

By the time RN-0000 more or less transferred under Hux’s direct care, Hux’s controller lay gathering dust in his bedside drawer. Why damage a rare commodity, when stern words and looks of displeasure worked just as well?

The force suppressant cuffs became bracelets. Then those came off too, against the advisory of research and security staff, when RN-0000 complained of irritation, constant dizziness, and vomited after a rich meal (Hux still remembered how Kylo Ren was particularly more destructive with missed sleep and skipped meals after long missions, and much more agreeable when kept comfortable, and after they… Ah, but that was a lifetime ago).

Hux also scuffed at the notion of a leash. A redundant trapping in poor taste and with no practical function, given how closely RN-0000 had all but glued himself to Hux’s side, weary and fearful of the greater environments outside of his usual cages.

**

What do you do with a bird that would not sing?

You coax it into song, of course.

**

First the other cadets, then his subordinates and superiors, then the Imperial council and the general populace. One by one Hux had them all eating out of the palm of his hand (or otherwise subdued).

A single broken creature, already clipped by a previous master, was of no challenge, no challenge at all.

**

(Little Brendol had cried when his mother’s special bird died. Commandant Hux had admonished his son for being weak and overly sentimental, for such characteristics were most detrimental to survival in their harsh new world at the edge of the civilized galaxy, and sent the boy packing to the barely reinstated military academy soon after.)

**

The little bird sang beautifully, just like Hux knew he would.

He would become Emperor and restore the Empire to glory yet, mused Hux as he looked out of his office window at his large private garden.

On the lawn, RN-0000 tripped over his own feet as he tried to do the simple forms assigned by his prismatic self-defense instructor.

**

Years passed. 

RN-0000 became Ben. 

And Ben became more.

**

Little Brendol walked out of his father’s door, through his mother’s garden, and down a winding path. In his cusped hands sat his mother’s little bird, its little body soft and warm, its little heart beating thud, thud, thud, against little Brendol’s palms.

The winding path led to a great forest, in which every type of tree joined together to make a great umbrella with their lush canopies, and all the flowers of all the Imperial worlds covered the forest bed in bloom. The little bird flew but never far away. It circled Brendol, singing all the songs of his childhood for him.

The great forest opened to a high cliff, which overlooked a sea of bright clouds. Each cloud took the shape of a memory from the past, of pain and happiness, of sacrifice and glory; each then dissipated to wisps, fading to become one with the floating sea again. The little bird became a great grey heron, and bore Brendol Hux II onto its back. The heron flapped its wings, and carried the man over the clouds to the sky beyond.

The sky beyond was dark and vast, yet shone with the light of a thousand glittering stars, just like the view from the bridge of a Resurgent-class Star Destroyer. The heron let Hux down from its back. Before Hux could express his surprise at how he was standing perfectly firm on nothing but the vacuum of space, the heron opened its mouth, and said in a familiar voice.

“I would go with you, but there are chicks with flight feathers newly tested waiting for me in our nest, and some predators still around them. Yet please wait for me, for the final journey ahead for us both is long and difficult, and I would love to have your company.”

And so Hux sat down on a star and waited, a grey feather held in the palm of his hand, over his heart.

**


	7. Dear Mysteriously Masked Teacher and the Littlest Brendol

**Final Bonus: Dear Mysteriously Masked Teacher and the Littlest Brendol**

**

The Mysteriously Masked Instructor was energetic and confident and taught all of his classes with interest and zeal. He quickly became a student favourite.

“You weren’t nervous at all during the first day of class, Uncle Ben?” asked Brendol Hux III.

“Mental shielding. Also as Grand Moff Phasma so often says, fake it until you make it. Since there are no secrets between us, Bren III, that shaking I was doing, that wasn’t out of excitement.”

**

“Teeeeacher!!! Dan Dan set the hedge maze on fire again trying to BBQ lizards!!!”

“NOOOOOO NOT THE HEDGE MAZE! We haven’t shown the Emperor our hedge animals yet!!! Put it out! Put it out with the Force!”

“Teacher, that’s not how the Force works!”

**

Admiral Tibbens hmmph’ed at the effectiveness of the entire LRFS program.

“Baking cakes and building tree forts and playing with farm animals and planting tatoes, and, and picking locks? And on top of that, our dear Prince wasting his precious time to mingle with whelps from the common herd! What is the use of such a program, when the only Force sensitive instructor is but a glorified nanny, and the Institute a charity kindergarten? Where is the testing? The research?”

He almost said ‘The human and other sentient creatures experiments?’ as well, but his pants magically dropped down to his ankles.

**

The Emperor strode down the slightly singed hedge maze, inspecting the hedge animals as he would his troops.

“The symbol of the First Order, Sir!” Brendol Hux III saluted his Emperor.

“Passable effort, Brendol.”

“And these three differently sized spheres are?”

“The Deathstar, the Deathstar II, and Starkiller base.” chirped three identical looking girls.

“Charmed, ladies.”

“And this is a sand lizard eating a Hutt slaver yes? Very lifelike. An eye for detail. Good work young man.”

“And what is that? Did one of the two year olds make it? Should they not be in the nursery program still?” The Emperor squinted at the misshapen blob at the end of the row.

“It is supposed to be our dear Emperor triumphant upon a majestic gualama,” the Mysteriously Masked Instructor said with a deadpan voice from behind his Mysterious Mask.

‘Uncle Ben made it!’ projected Brendol III to his father frantically.

“Ah a fine post-modern piece,” the Emperor coughed and waved at his Stormtrooper escorts. “You, you, have this moved to my private garden later, so that I may admire it at leisure.”

**

Councilman Cannis haaaa’ed at the credentials of the Mysteriously Masked Instructor.

“The man came out of nowhere, with no history, no references, no pedigree. How could we trust such a man, when he would not even show his face? And look at him molly cuddling his gaggle of neonates at this First Order semi-formal dinner, which is no place for unwashed charity cases, or a full-grown man who couldn’t even use his forks in the correct order! Wait, did that man bring his own spork?” 

The spork had so offended the councilman, that he almost said something about the Emperor’s judgement as well, allowing such a man close access to the Prince, when scholars such as himself were barred. But before he could put such treasonous thoughts to words, he flew up thirty feet into the air, clutching at his flabby neck.

“Put him down! Put him down! All of you! That means you too, Dan Dan. What if you accidentally drop him into the punch bowl?! I haven’t gone back for a second drink yet!” The Mysteriously Masked Instructor exclaimed to his students while clutching his spork, visibly horrified. 

Brendol III gave the passed out Councilman a most condescending look and flicked at an imaginary lint on his school jacket. Unwashed charity cases? His uniform was spotless. His hair was impeccable. And he’d spent hours making sure all of his classmates’ followed his example. How dared the fool.

**

By sane standards of ordinary, sane people, it was somewhat early to allow most of the children lightsabers, even training ones. Then again this was not the world of sane people, but that of a galaxy far, far away. The records of the Old Republic clearly documented how the Jedi had trained their youths, and the current Emperor personally thought children old enough to fire a blaster should be old enough to hold a laser sword.

Pacifica laughed when Brendol III switched on his training blade, and a bright pink beam of light shot forth with a buzz. That’ll teach her brother to mock her fondness of ‘girly’ colours and cute animal patterns.

**

“Father, may I be granted permission to have a classmate spend the spring break here at the family compound? His planet of origin is in the lawless New New Republic space, and he has no family to speak of. I promise I would not be distracted from my course work by this, and will take on all the duties of a proper host…”

“Brendol, these children will one day be your subordinates. Direct subordinates even, if the follow up programs to the LRFS come to fruition. A ruler must maintain a certain distance to rule effectively,” the Emperor glanced over his datapad at his son.

Had Brendol Hux III been a lesser man’s son, his face would have fell. As it were, the boy’s parade rest simply got stiffer.

The Emperor put down his datapad, looked at his son, and took a drink from the glass of scotch sitting on his table. He then continued his short lecture with a slightly less severe tone, “That being said, Brendol, since a good leader should also appear somewhat approachable, you may extend one dinner invitation to this classmate of yours. An entire week, on the other hand, is out of the question.”

Brendol Hux III thanked his father, closed the study door behind himself carefully, and went back to his own room.

The boy looked up at the Finalizer scale model hanging against a ceiling of stars, and wondered if his father had ever managed to have any fun or a social life in his youth? When his grandfather, gleaned from leaked memories here and there, though beloved and admired, was an even stricter man?

At least father granted permission for one dinner. Maybe he should go talk to Uncle Ben, and see if he could extend that to a full play date with sleepover.

**

Brendol Hux III got his sleepover.

He got his sleepover, on the condition of an afternoon lost to media flat-holo shoots for government sponsored gossip magazines. Brendol Hux III didn’t like that at all. But he found it difficult to say no to an evening mapping the stars from his sister’s balcony, and the rest of the night whispering under the blankets with a friend (yes, finally a friend who was not his sister or Uncle Ben!).

People cooed over the magazines. Such intimate coverage of the royal children were rare. A crime really, given how adorable the imperial heirs were. The holos circulated widely and quickly online and off. On the cover pages, the Prince’s freckles splashed like stars across his smiling face, and his playmate’s yellow eyes were round and large, his nose smeared with cake.

**

Dopheld Mitaka had long since retired from the military, and found his calling in the civilian world. 

After the flat-holo shoot, Vice Director Mitaka of Media and Communications poured over the holos himself, and hand-picked all the featured frames. The royal family should be approachable and relatable. The message of how the New Empire had cast away its predecessor’s speciest tendencies should be present but not overbearing. In this case, let the Prince be an example to his people.

Even as a General, Hux had made his views on speciesism clear, even though his proposals had gained unfortunate little traction then. As with many other things, Mitaka had agreed with his General wholeheartedly. To reject much needed talents and alienate possible allies on the sole criterion of their species would do nothing but weaken the First Order in the long run, and boost the ranks of its enemies. In the face of practicality, Imperial sentiments were just that, sentiments. 

Personally, Mitaka didn’t really particularly like a lot of the non-humans, but the New Empire must make friends where it could find them, and a galaxy populated completely by humans was an impossible notion. He scrolled through the last few holos again, trying to find the best shots. At least this alien child appeared almost human. And the Prince actually looked surprisingly his own age in some of the flat-holos, laughing and smiling instead of trying to imitate his father’s stern features.

**

Admiral Tibbens shut up about the program completely after a LRFS field trip to the First Order detainment facility under his care, during which he had again lost his pants, this time by wetting them himself.

The little sand-rat (an uncivilized spawn of nobody, not even fully human, liberated from a Hutt cargo ship by Grand Moff Phasma’s contingent while skirting disputed areas between the Empire and the Republic) sheared off the legs of a fleeing Resistance spy with an invisible sickle and a careless laugh, just like how he had sheared off the branches of a bush to make his hedge sand lizard. 

The youngest girl in the little group then proceeded to make the new amputee crawl back to his cell using his remaining limbs. Not much different than the nerfs I used to play with at home, exclaimed the girl, all decked out in pastel ribbons and flowers by her instructor. But Teacher said we shan’t bother the poor animals. Now I am so out of practice.

The children in the Mysteriously Masked Instructor’s advanced class weren’t conditioned like the old First Order Stormtroopers to be soldiers from birth. The children weren’t put into any particularly regimented dehumanization programs to make them weapons of espionage and war. But somehow many exhibited an almost accidental viciousness and casual disregard for sentient life.

**

Ben was the last interviewer, when the program first started, to judge the Force sensitivity of the children, or so Brendol Hux III was told.

But Ben wasn’t just looking for Force sensitivity. Hux had specifically instructed him to look into these children for both something missing, and something more.

“FN-2187 was a harsh lesson to us all. One’s nature is perhaps just as important as nurture, no matter how well-designed the reconditioning programs are.”

“Those who are not selected for the special class would still receive some Force training from you, of course,” the Emperor noted to the soon-to-be instructor. “But they will likely have an otherwise different curriculum, more suited to gentler, more civil oriented pursuits. As for Brendol, he would of course be placed in your care regardless.”

(The Republic media published stories of Force sensitive children kidnapped out of their homes and communities by the vile Empire, sometimes even from the edge of Republic space no less.

They did not mention how some parents had begged the program administrators to take the unmanageable little monsters away. Their faces full of relief from years of stress, men and women at the ends of their ropes. They did not mention how some children were snatched up from local stonings, drownings, torchings. The hatchets of their fathers and the needles of their mothers.

Destructive monsters, whispered their communities. Powerful monsters, whispered the Stormtroopers tasked with their transport. Damaged monsters, whispered some of the staff at the Institute. Look upon these very examples of unfavourable nature and brutal nurture combined. Glory to the Emperor for removing these menaces from the hapless general society. 

Potentially useful monsters, thought the Emperor, as he stroked his own irreplaceable pet monster’s lush hair to hear him purr.)

(The caretakers assigned to those who had no homes nor parents to return to tutted at their charges, as they tucked them in for bed. Poor darlings, so misfortunate and abandoned. Why if not for our Emperor’s charity, we dare not imagine what horrible fates would befall you. Our dear, caring, admirable Emperor, a father to his people.)

(The Emperor gave Phasma, finally returned from her tour of the edge worlds and for good this time, different instructions than what he’d told Ben – Watch Ben’s class closely, and cull them, if they could not be brought under control. The Empire had no need for uncontrollable and overpowered latent sociopaths, psychopaths, and criminals.)

**

Councilman Cannis never got the chance to shut up about the Mysteriously Masked Instructor or the Emperor. He was dead. Choked on a duck bone during one evening meal, they said. The man’s off-world mining operations were audited, found lacking in everything but profitability, and absorbed into various state backed companies.

“See, that is how you do it. You don’t Force choke. You move other objects with the Force to choke in a more natural manner,” beamed the Mysteriously Masked Instructor at his star-struck pupils. 

‘We shan’t alarm the public excessively’, the Emperor had once whispered to Ben years ago (when the Emperor was still a Grand Moff, and Ben was only RN-0000) during a dinner outing, where he’d also told Ben to help a perfectly coiffed woman sitting at the other side of the restaurant choke on her filet mignon. For getting it in one go, Ben was rewarded a rich chocolate caf dessert (handmade, flour-free, all organic, and topped with locally grown berries. Ben ate it on the way home. The restaurant had to close early).

(Ben’s range has since vastly improved.)

**

“Teacher, may I ask you something?”

“Yes Bren III? And I am no teacher right now, just Uncle Ben is fine.”

“Uncle Ben, you know how I could never read you. I think father and sister too, are unsure about this. Uncle, are we holding you back from who you could be? Who you should be? You are so strong, the most powerful Force user in the entire Empire. Maybe even the whole galaxy! Do you not find it strange? Living in the shadows as two people instead of getting long-deserved recognition? Are you, perhaps, pretending to be Ben just to appease my father?”

“Ehh? But I am one person! I am Ben. The Instructor is the mask. You can even hold the mask, see!” so saying, Ben took out the mask and gave it to Brendol Hux III to hold.

“Is Hux making you ask this? Ah, he is, but it is your question too. But wasn’t it him that wanted me to be more independent? Him that thought a position of responsibility would make me happier for some reason? Now that I am playacting as an Instructor and bringing home a salary, he is worried I won’t be Ben anymore? His red hair is going to turn all grey at this rate, fussing all the time over nothing. Maybe I haven’t been giving him enough reciprocal back scratches recently?”

“As for recognition? I care not for the bowing and scraping of people I care not for. I already have recognition from you and the other children. And I am ever happiest at your father’s feet. It was the first safe place I’d ever found. Still is the safest and most comfortable place for me,” Ben smiled and fitted his mask over little Brendol’s face.

**

The Mysteriously Masked Instructor became the Mysteriously Masked Director, when the first batch of his students entered their senior year (the Ministry of Education hosted a party in the new Director’s honour. Everyone attending was given a single spork for all the courses).

Brendol Hux III grew his hair out long, despite his father’s quickly smoothed frown (so this was the mask his son had chosen) and his sister’s good-natured teasing (she was so thankful, and so sorry. But their fates were long predetermined). Gone was the serious little boy in regulation uniform, and in his place bloomed a casual young man with an easy smile and an approachable demeanor. The harmless and slightly eccentric younger Prince, darling of the public and press.

Pacifica Hux dyed her hair and tied it into two lively buns that frayed everywhere, switched her severe black dress for pastel scrubs printed with cute animals and tiny starships, and joined the new Stormtrooper program as Bennie the part time junior dental assistant in training. The public and press knew nothing of their dignified Crown Princess’s little hobby. The only time Bennie was in the media was as a two seconds background cameo in a promotional program about full dental coverage provided by the military.

**

Pacifica Hux deployed with the 2nd Stormtrooper regiment, later known as the Emperor’s Own Regiment during her reign, to Indoumodo for planetary survey and resource procurement. Hux was slightly exasperated when he found out his little girl was signed up as a dental assistant instead of the officer position he had procured for her.

Brendol Hux III became known as the Prince who launched a thousand ships after his kidnapping by the Resistance during a diplomatic visit near contested space (the Resistance squad captain swore up and down that she had no idea. Absolutely no idea who the mousy ginger they’d scooped up along with some Stormtroopers was at the time. He had looked so plain, so unassuming, nothing like the Prince’s flamboyant public image. The Imperial council accused her of being a dishonest lair). The public was furious. Their beloved Prince was only a civilian, and a peaceful conscientious objector to boot (Imperial voluntary enlistments went up by 40%)! When the Prince was recovered with signs of brutality and attempted murder upon his gentle person, both the court and public urged their Emperor to mobilize and avenge this horrible injustice, an insult added to years of injury dealt by the repugnant Republic. And Emperor Hux, ever a ruler for the people, listened to the people. When the New New Republic accused the Emperor of warmongering, the notion was mocked and derided. Did you not laud the virtues of democracy? Now hear the roar of our majority.

The Mysteriously Masked Director became a semi-public figure through the war council, when the Empire, waking as if a disturbed and enraged hibernating beast, both well-rested and ravenous, entered full scale conflict with the Republic in what was later known as the First Imperial Expansion War (the Director hosted a send-off party in his students’ honour, even cooked the bantha surprise himself. Some of his graduating class would soon head off to full-blown war).

**

Stormtrooper pilot DNDN-0112 was promoted straight to Flight Lieutenant by the end of the kidnapping fiasco for his daring rescue of the Prince.

Ben berated Bren III for putting himself in danger, as he fretted over a fading black eye and the livid scar across the young man’s ribs.

Brendol III grumbled at his Teacher about the importance of just cause. The war was inevitable by this point anyway. The Republic had become more aggressive after General Organa’s death. The Empire sorely needed the resources offered by the planets within contested Mid Rim space. For resource gathering operations to be optimized, greater order and social stability are a must on those planets. And for such stability, they needed the First Order to have full control. His kidnapping gave the war effort both legitimacy and momentum. 

And he was perfectly safe. The black eye was mostly for show. And this was just a scratch, really, not a stab wound. They had moles in the Resistance. People who took out their hatred of a man on his son were weak against mind tricks to begin with. Dan Dan was an excellent pilot. They had four Force users. Their class’s strongest, the Puppeteer, was there with Brendol III under a Stormtrooper helmet throughout. The whole thing was a well-planned low risk operation.

Ben had such a row with Hux.

Hux almost preferred it to the silent treatment that had started since the initial draft of this operation was approved. 

**

As troops were loaded and ships deployed, Ben remained adamant that his younger students be kept out of the whole mess. It was the third time he had ever truly fought with Hux over anything. 

Ben was adamant, until one faction within the New New Republic, with the full democratic support of their home worlds, and the utter shock and disappointment of Jedi Masters Skywalker and Rey, deployed the Inter-Planetary Ballistic Missiles at Imperial Core clusters. 

Building upon the experience and expertise of similar constructions by the Empire and then the First Order, the New New Republic group was both thorough and discreet. The IPBM arrays were constructed piecemeal by those who were none the wiser, and assembled far away from Republic hub worlds. Hux’s spies were too late. And Ben, so swamped already by visions of death and pain wrought by this war, and so distracted by his infuriating Brendols, was also too late.

Ben woke days later from Force overuse induced coma (Force-based religions saw such a renewal) with tears streaming down his face. Hux took Ben into his arms. Their grown children fretted. Yet Ben could only take so much comfort in their familiar presences, all safe and sound. His tears went on until tears ran dry. 

He cried for the satellite stations he could not protect. He cried for his children far too young still for war. And he cried for that kind-faced woman from a childhood long forgotten, for her dream of a shining Republic may be headed towards its deathbed.

**

Imperial voluntary enlistments went up by 80%.

**

DNDN-0112 was promoted to Wing Commander when his squadron flew behind enemy lines and destroyed the Republic’s IPBM arrays with minimum TIE fighter casualties. Some said the Force was with them. Others attributed it to luck, for former Resistance ace pilot, now Republic Admiral Poe Dameron’s hand-trained squadron fought most half-heartedly that day. DNDN-0112 laughed at the truth behind both assumptions. Guilt was such a powerful emotion, and remorseful men doubly easy to manipulate with the help of the Force.

When the Institute’s second graduating class (fast-tracked to support the war effort) and the Emperor himself deployed for war, Ben went with them. All learned to fear Emperor Starkiller’s flagship.

Amidst the stars Ben felt an old man fading away, his soul shrouded in self-reproach and sorrow. He thought they had won, he thought Light and goodness had prevailed. His father was redeemed. His sister so in love and happy. His nephew’s eyes wide and innocent, full of promises for a bright future. But where was the happy ending promised to the heroes of epic ballads? He had failed, oh how he had failed.

Across the battlefield Ben felt an adventurous soul growing weary and old. Tied down to a flagship instead of flying free, commanding men from behind a console instead of physically leading them to victories. The bright world he had fought for as a young man was now tarnished with age. And it was his fault that they had lost the boy he’d once loved as a brother. If only he hadn’t told the boy about the woods. Oh those deep dark woods.

Ben also felt another presence strong in the Force, a bright warmth shining with light. Ah, it was the same light that had burnt out the slithering presence of Snoke years ago, the same light that had started the chain of events that had freed RN-0000 from his many prisons.

But sorry Uncle whom I’ve barely met in person, sorry Friend who was less than a fuzzy memory, and sorry Master Rey, for you have your loved ones, and I have mine.

**

At the end of the First Imperial Expansion War, Dan Dan took off his helmet, put away his medals, gave up his steady promotions in the TIE fighter program along with his childhood dream about the stars, and became a moderately successful landscape artist instead. Amongst the local art scene, Dan Dan was lauded for a good eye for detail and his emotional depiction of the macabre (as one of the first field operatives of MIIIST, Agent DNDN was lauded for a good eye for detail and his professional execution of the macabre).

Brendol Benedict Hux III expressed some regret for the man’s choice, to clip his own wings and give up a promising place in the sun to join this thankless cloak and dagger game, a most noble self-sacrifice for the good of the Empire.

Bren III was secretly very glad.

**

Many, many decades later, the Mysteriously Masked Director, savior of the Imperial Core cluster and great hero of the First Imperial Expansion War, who was said to have founded the prestigious Institute of Learning and Research for Force Sensitive Children of the New Galactic Empire, trained numerous outstanding talents who made key contributions to society, reinvigorated the near lost connection to the Force (Jedis? What Jedis?), and protected the Empire and her Emperors even from the beyond, finally transcended history and became legend. 

And the original mask he wore was preserved in the New Galactic Empire’s central culture and history museum, along with a slim pink lightsaber (wielded first by scholar Prince Brendol Benedict Hux III, then his nephew, hero of the Second Imperial Expansion War) and the regalia of the Empire’s not long but also not short line of imperial rulers, before the Empire evolved into a constitutional monarchy.

It was a custom for the people of the Imperial Core Worlds, to take their children to marvel at the artefacts of their great founding pioneers.

**

It was also a custom for lovers to visit Emperor Hux the First’s Mausoleum, and leave flowers at the foot of the Emperor’s statue. The man was depicted as he was in his prime, sitting regally upon his throne, holding a miniature Starkiller Base in his left hand and a book of Imperial law in his right. A little carved bird perched jauntily on his shoulder.

The man himself had a very short marriage. But his son was said to have left garlands there every year, and was blessed with a lifelong close partnership unparalleled by others. People emulated the Prince, hoping for the same long lasting love for themselves, and thus the practice was born.

**

The End End


End file.
